On this day in history, November 10, 1954:
The Iwo Jima Memorial was officially dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the 179th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps. Located in Arlington, Virginia, right across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., it honors all Marines who have died defending the United States since 1775.
President John F. Kennedy issued a proclamation in 1961 that an American flag should fly from the memorial 24 hours a day, one of the few official sites where this is required.
The cost of the statue and the development of the memorial site totaled $850,000, all donated by U.S. Marines, Marine Corps reservists, former Marines, friends of the Marines, and members of the Naval Service. Public funds were not used.
Inspired by Joe Rosenthal Photograph
The statue depicts the raising of a 60-foot, bronze pole flying the American flag atop Mount Suribachi by five Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman, signaling the successful takeover of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, which led to the end of the war in 1945.
The sculpture was inspired by a Pulitzer Prize-winning picture, taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, of the battle of Iwo Jima, 660 miles south of Tokyo, the last territory that U.S. troops recaptured from the Japanese in World War II.
The flag-raising photograph, which was taken on the fifth day of the 35-day battle from February 19 to March 26, 1945, caused an immediate sensation. Two days after it was first seen, U.S. senators rose on the floor of the Senate calling for a national monument modeled on the picture. Thousands of American citizens wrote the president appealing for such a monument to immortalize the photograph.
Inspired by the photo, Felix de Weldon, an ambitious sculptor who was serving in the U.S. Navy, almost immediately created a clay replica of the flag-raising from floor wax used for ship decks. His model attracted so much attention that he was asked to create a life-size sculpture, which he did.
Symbol of Heroism
The base of the memorial is made of Swedish granite, inscribed with the names and dates of every principal member of the Marines, and engraved with the words: "In honor and in memory of the men of the United States Marine Corps who have given their lives to their country since November 10, 1775." Another inscription reads: "Uncommon Valor Was a Common Virtue," a tribute made by Admiral Chester Nimitz to the soldiers on Iwo Jima.
The Iwo Jima flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi, an extinct volcano, has been depicted in several Hollywood films, including 1949's “Sands of Iwo Jima,” in which the three surviving flag raisers made a cameo appearance at the end of the movie. In July 1945, the U.S. Post Office released a postage stamp bearing the iconic image. The United States issued another stamp in 1995, showing the flag-raising as part of a 10-stamp series marking the 50th anniversary of World War II.
The Iwo Jima Memorial, the world’s tallest bronze statue at 78 feet, is widely considered America's greatest symbol of strength, sacrifice and heroism.
